The Eternals

self-titled

by Eden Miller

With strange sci-fi sounds and heavy beats with odd vocals, The Eternals are weird and intelligent during every moment of their self-titled release. Even when these bizarre songs cross over into annoying, they are admirable in their originality.

One part hippie-jam band and one part electronic exploration, The Eternals have this inexplicable quality of sounding like all of this was created deep in someone’s basement while still possessing high quality production values. It is a bit incongruous, but everything about The Eternals is a bit off-kilter. They are quirky without sounding overdone. This sounds like music that The Eternals believe in and are making only for themselves.

The Eternals

(Desoto)

The Eternals focuses on social consciousness in a crazy world. From the opening track “Billions of People” to the spacey “Phase 3 (of a Never Ending Transformation)”, all of the songs feature a higher awareness of the world, even in personal situations. On “Feverous Times” vocalist Damon Locks intones “It’s like final call shakes my windowsill / I’ve grown accustomed to the taste of the poisonous pills.” While this global vision seems to get hidden in obscure lyrics, The Eternals seem to want to be the collective voice of everyone.

While their purposes are praiseworthy, there’s too much of The Eternals that feels tedious. The songs are a bit too deliberate and take too long to develop. Even though the mellowness serves The Eternals well, there’s not enough excitement in it to sustain the entire album. Their music is interesting, but once the initial novelty wears off, there’s not much to hold onto in it. They do some unique things, but in the end, it’s not enough.

Still, The Eternals show a promise that may prove to be fulfilling with some more refinement. They have their ambitions in the right place, and their unusual construction of their songs with their socially relevant lyrics gives them a step above the whiny rock stars of the world. The Eternals doesn’t succeed in all areas, but it does in enough of them to make this a release worth giving some attention. For all we know, The Eternals could be the future of music.